Posted on 09/04/2002 12:22:02 PM PDT by dead
Jonathan Turley is a professor of constitutional and public-interest law at George Washington University Law School in D.C. He is also a defense attorney in national security cases and other matters, writes for a number of publications, and is often on television. He and I occasionally exchange leads on civil liberties stories, but I learn much more from him than he does from me.
For example, a Jonathan Turley column in the national edition of the August 14 Los Angeles Times ("Camps for Citizens: Ashcroft's Hellish Vision") begins:
"Attorney General John Ashcroft's announced desire for camps for U.S. citizens he deems to be 'enemy combatants' has moved him from merely being a political embarrassment to being a constitutional menace." Actually, ever since General Ashcroft pushed the U.S. Patriot Act through an overwhelmingly supine Congress soon after September 11, he has subverted more elements of the Bill of Rights than any attorney general in American history.
Under the Justice Department's new definition of "enemy combatant"—which won the enthusiastic approval of the president and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld—anyone defined as an "enemy combatant," very much including American citizens, can be held indefinitely by the government, without charges, a hearing, or a lawyer. In short, incommunicado.
Two American citizens—Yaser Esam Hamdi and Jose Padilla—are currently locked up in military brigs as "enemy combatants." (Hamdi is in solitary in a windowless room.) As Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Tribe said on ABC's Nightline (August 12):
"It bothers me that the executive branch is taking the amazing position that just on the president's say-so, any American citizen can be picked up, not just in Afghanistan, but at O'Hare Airport or on the streets of any city in this country, and locked up without access to a lawyer or court just because the government says he's connected somehow with the Taliban or Al Qaeda. That's not the American way. It's not the constitutional way. . . . And no court can even figure out whether we've got the wrong guy."
In Hamdi's case, the government claims it can hold him for interrogation in a floating navy brig off Norfolk, Virginia, as long as it needs to. When Federal District Judge Robert Doumar asked the man from the Justice Department how long Hamdi is going to be locked up without charges, the government lawyer said he couldn't answer that question. The Bush administration claims the judiciary has no right to even interfere.
Now more Americans are also going to be dispossessed of every fundamental legal right in our system of justice and put into camps. Jonathan Turley reports that Justice Department aides to General Ashcroft "have indicated that a 'high-level committee' will recommend which citizens are to be stripped of their constitutional rights and sent to Ashcroft's new camps."
It should be noted that Turley, who tries hard to respect due process, even in unpalatable situations, publicly defended Ashcroft during the latter's turbulent nomination battle, which is more than I did.
Again, in his Los Angeles Times column, Turley tries to be fair: "Of course Ashcroft is not considering camps on the order of the internment camps used to incarcerate Japanese American citizens in World War II. But he can be credited only with thinking smaller; we have learned from painful experience that unchecked authority, once tasted, easily becomes insatiable." (Emphasis added.)
Turley insists that "the proposed camp plan should trigger immediate Congressional hearings and reconsideration of Ashcroft's fitness for important office. Whereas Al Qaeda is a threat to the lives of our citizens, Ashcroft has become a clear and present threat to our liberties." (Emphasis added.)
On August 8, The Wall Street Journal, which much admires Ashcroft on its editorial pages, reported that "the Goose Creek, South Carolina, facility that houses [Jose] Padilla—mostly empty since it was designated in January to hold foreigners captured in the U.S. and facing military tribunals—now has a special wing that could be used to jail about 20 U.S. citizens if the government were to deem them enemy combatants, a senior administration official said." The Justice Department has told Turley that it has not denied this story. And space can be found in military installations for more "enemy combatants."
But once the camps are operating, can General Ashcroft be restrained from detaining—not in these special camps, but in regular lockups—any American investigated under suspicion of domestic terrorism under the new, elastic FBI guidelines for criminal investigations? From page three of these Ashcroft terrorism FBI guidelines:
"The nature of the conduct engaged in by a [terrorist] enterprise will justify an inference that the standard [for opening a criminal justice investigation] is satisfied, even if there are no known statements by participants that advocate or indicate planning for violence or other prohibited acts." (Emphasis added.) That conduct can be simply "intimidating" the government, according to the USA Patriot Act.
The new Steven Spielberg-Tom Cruise movie, Minority Report, shows the government, some years hence, imprisoning "pre-criminals" before they engage in, or even think of, terrorism. That may not be just fiction, folks.
Returning to General Ashcroft's plans for American enemy combatants, an August 8 New York Times editorial—written before those plans were revealed—said: "The Bush administration seems to believe, on no good legal authority, that if it calls citizens combatants in the war on terrorism, it can imprison them indefinitely and deprive them of lawyers. This defiance of the courts repudiates two centuries of constitutional law and undermines the very freedoms that President Bush says he is defending in the struggle against terrorism."
Meanwhile, as the camps are being prepared, the braying Terry McAuliffe and the pack of Democratic presidential aspirants are campaigning on corporate crime, with no reference to the constitutional crimes being committed by Bush and Ashcroft. As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis prophesied: "The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people." And an inert Democratic leadership. See you in a month, if I'm not an Ashcroft camper.
All men are born free and equal. Any violation of their natural rights as men by a government or other men is an illegitemate act of tyranny.
To: HaveGunWillTravel
Problem was that this was not established in the Constitution. Blacks were not recognized as men, and this assumption was upheld by the Dred Scott SCOTUS decision. The 14th corrected and superceded Dred Scott.
# 103 by
The Constitution is just a piece of hemp paper, full of words written by men.
Government recognition has nothing to do with freedom.
Rights are God-given, and any governmental violation of freedom is tyranny.
If the Constitution said that water was not water, water would still be water.
Jonathan Turley made the "camp" remarks up out of whole cloth and Nat Hentoff based an entire column on it. Amazingly I watched Turley eat his words in an interview on FoxNews. I guess Nat missed it.
If Congress has already recognized a state of war exists through it's war powers and military action authorization last year, then the remaining point is moot.
To: mhking
"...If a state of war exists, and if Congress has recognized that a state of war exists, by whatever means, then the gloves are off, and anyone considered an enemy combatant is fair game..."
# 105 by marron
Congress HAS NOT recognized that a State of War exists.
Official Congressional recognition of war would require a Declaration of War. Congress hasn't done that.
Congress authorised the use of force against terrorists. That's not the same as a war.
We are embroiled in a police action, not a war.
To: exodus; Avoiding_Sulla
Was Sulla a Roman 'neo'? ;^)
# 113 by headsonpikes
In a way, yes.
Sulla believed in the idea of Rome, but he thought that Rome should be Rome on his terms.
To: HaveGunWillTravel
"...I'm not saying to legalize drugs. But I am saying that the onus belongs with the states, not the federal government - just as the onus with alcohol regulation is a state's rights issue.
# 114 by mhking
All drug laws are based upon a corruption of the Commerce Power.
Neither Federal, State, nor Local government can Constitutionally outlaw any drug.
This war mimics the Cold War in many ways and Ashcoroft is rightfully interpreting the laws that bind us in a way that both protect us from further terrorist attacks and protect our constitutional liberties. He and this administration deserve phenomenal credit for balancing the need to defend our naiton and the need to defend our liberties.
If the Constitution said that water was not water, water would still be water.
In the eyes of the law of the land; in the eyes of the men who created the law of the land, black men were not men. At most they were considered 3/5 of a person. Black men were not people. The Dred Scott decision reaffirmed this. The 14th Amendment removed that distinction.
Certainly our rights are God-given, but we were viewed differently prior to the Emancipation. No amount of declaration can change that. In the eyes of America, we were not people at that time. Where our rights were granted was immaterial at the time.
There is a distinct difference between man's law and moral law. Morally, we always have been men with God-given rights. Legally, this was simply not so.
We are embroiled in a police action, not a war.
A formal declaration is not needed. There is precedence. Korea. Vietnam. Desert Storm. These "police actions" were wars - undeclared ones, but wars nonetheless. This is no different.
Neither Federal, State, nor Local government can Constitutionally outlaw any drug.
Then, again, the federal government has no business being involved in the war on drugs.
To: rdb3
"...as the first poster that you replied to implied, the lefty author seems to ignore this in his attack on Ashcroft. I agree with the author that Ashcroft may be an enemy of the constitution in his own way, but I also see the authors bias and selectivity in singling out Ashcroft."
# 115 by HaveGunWillTravel
Whether the author of the article is a socialst makes no difference as to whether Ashcroft's policies are socialist.
Searches without warrants; detention without trial; breaking into private homes without warning; concentration camps; officially sanctioned murder; all those actions are what you would expect from a tyrannical dictator.
Words mean things, and our government sure does talk pretty. However, actions speak louder than words.
There is a distinct difference between man's law and moral law. Morally, (black men) always have been men with God-given rights. Legally, this was simply not so.
# 151 by mhking
Men are men, no matter their race, and all men have rights, even if those rights are being infringed upon.
If you're a slave being beaten, you have the right to kill to defend yourself, even though a corrupt government will execute you for asserting that right.
Government can't take your rights away, but they can make asserting your rights downright hazardous to your health.
The purpose of the Founding Fathers was to protect all free men from the power of government.
Everyone realized, even then, that slaves were men. The problem was that slaves were not FREE men. Slaves were considered to be "in bondage," so just as a man in prison was not free, so a slave was not free.
All men, by virtue of being men, should be free.
Even in the United States no man, regardless of race, is safe from the threat of slavery without a Constitutional protection against slavery.
What we need is a Constitutional Amendment outlawing the practice of slavery.
Congress authorised the use of force against terrorists. That's not the same as a war. We are embroiled in a police action, not a war.
To: exodus
A formal declaration is not needed. There is precedence. Korea. Vietnam. Desert Storm. These "police actions" were wars - undeclared ones, but wars nonetheless. This is no difference.
# 152 by mhking
"Precedence" does not make law. Precedence is a tool used by judges to avoid thinking.
Legislation makes law.
The Constitution says that Congress has the power to declare war. The 10th Amendment says that government cannot usurp powers not specifically granted to it by the people.
President Bush declared war on terrorism. That is a usurpation of power, and illegal under our code of law.
Congress gave the President the power to use force against terrorism. Congress DID NOT declare war.
There is a difference.
"...Then, again, the federal government has no business being involved in the war on drugs."
# 153 by mhking
Neither do State or Local government have business conducting any "war" on drugs.
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